I choose again.

~.~.~.~

I am elsewhere. Outside of time. Memory has returned. I have something like a body, and it is clad in silver. I raise my hands to my face to look at them and wings unfurl from my back. This is the form I wore when last I chose, when I chose to be what Xena would call a daimon, a guardian spirit, bringer of destiny. As a new daimon, from all the cosmos, all of time and space, I chose her. Because it could not be otherwise. Because our souls have always been together, since before time began. My companion chose mortal existence, chose to suffer and learn, and I would not be separated from her, could not be by any force other than our own will, so I became her daimon.

I did not know—could not have known—what it meant to be mortal, to have a physical body, bound by physical laws. Nor did I understand what love was, any more than a fish knows what water is, because it was all we had known; it was our entire existence. But now, through her, I have felt how a soul in a mortal body loves: the body loves, as much as the spirit; the body craves the beloved, longs for union with the beloved, as much as the spirit does.

When last I chose, I could not have known that she, in her body, would need my touch, a physical touch. Mortal body to mortal body.

Now I know.

There is a longing in her, soul and body, that only I, her second soul, can fulfill.

A figure stands before me. He—for his form is male—he, too, is framed by wings, but his are a rich green while I know mine to be white.

"Well, little guardian?" he says in Greek.

Always so patronizing, this one. Does he not realize that I was ancient when he was new made, that I am timeless and of all time?

"I will incarnate," I declare, and my voice is steady if not as resonate as his. He is something other than I, than Xena. He has never had this choice. He can be only what he was made to be. I'm a bit resentful that today that job includes standing witness to my choice, but his master is slowly gaining dominion over the material plane. That is the way of it; gods come and go as belief shapes the cosmos and one simply has to put up with it. "I must be with her, in all ways."

"The life she has chosen is only going to get harder," he warns. "You will suffer."

"Life is suffering," I reply. "Yet she chose life. We cannot be parted. We have always been together—"

"But you did not. You did not choose mortal life when she did. There must have been a reason for that." His prying is almost taunting, as if he thinks he knows the reason, and maybe he's right, but I do not care.

There was a reason, of course. I did not want to suffer; I did not see the value of such suffering, of mortal life in general. The suffering it entailed thus seemed pointless.

I do not have to answer, to assuage his curiosity—or rather his master's—but I decide that I will, in part. "If there was, it has been outweighed." It is the truth, and his master may make of it what he will.

Dismissing that line of conversation, I continue where he interrupted. "We cannot be parted, and now I choose to be with her in the life she has chosen, suffering or no. Besides," I remind him, "I have suffered with her through mortal life already."

He shakes his head, almost sadly. "It is not the same as the merging of souls of daimon and mortal. You will suffer separately if you do this. You in your body, her in hers. You will be two, for the first time since time began. Entirely separate."

He speaks of what he cannot possibly understand. And that he has exceeded his role so far as to question my choice angers me, but I remind myself that this one can only do what he is told; it is his presumptuous master who deserves my ire, not he. My voice is calm when I reply. "Then I will suffer separately, but I will be with her."

"Hmm. For a time, you will, but you will not know her as you know her now. You will not remember."

"I may not remember, but I will know her."

He continues as if I hadn't spoken. "And mortal bodies are fragile. One day, one of you will die and leave that body, and one will be left behind."

The idea of that gives me pause as I contemplate what it might feel like to the human woman who remains. But I will not be swayed. "Not for long," I say.

"Years, perhaps," he retorts. He seems to be angry now, and I suspect that is because he is not managing to accomplish whatever task his master set for him. "You will trade complete union for a brief span of mortal existence, split into two, followed by a time of complete separation upon one of your deaths? For what?"

Foolish angel—foolish master. What are mortal years to we who are eternal?

My anger is fiercer now and it is that anger which makes me answer. "So that we may have what she needs now: mortal love, mortal union, the comfort she will take from the touch of my hand. So that I may learn what she is learning and thus continue to be her other half after this life ends, as I have always been."

He turns his face from me, from my anger, and tries another approach. "It is not an easy life that she chose. There will be more blood—much more. And much more pain, for her and anyone near her. There will be brutality of a sort you cannot now imagine. You will not like what she is becoming, especially what she will become while you are separated—"

"She is mine. She is me. I am her. It doesn't matter if I like it. If there will be something I cannot imagine now, I must experience it. A lack of understanding, an inequality of knowledge and experience, must not divide our souls after this lifetime."

He turns back. "In the life she has chosen, one day, you will look upon me not with love as you now look on all—nor even with the reverence mortals have for my kind—but with hate. I will be her enemy, and thus, I will be your enemy."

And so he reveals his master's ever-growing ambitions—and the nature of them. A strategic mistake, and again, not his own.

"Then we will be enemies."

I can see that my unruffled acceptance of such a thing has angered him. Made him too angry even to respond. I press my advantage, realizing I have learned many things already, merely by sharing Xena's life. What more might I learn by living my own at her side? My patience wears thin. I say the words I know must put an end to this pointless discussion no matter how intent he is on continuing it.

"It is my choice, and I have chosen."

"Yes," he allows bitterly, with seeming vindictiveness. I watch his face and see a look cross it that I have seen on many faces through Xena's eyes: it is the bitterness of recognizing inevitable defeat from an unexpected source. But no matter; he says what he must say in response, and I repeat it. I say the words with relish because it feels good to have won and denied this one's master what he desires, even if the victory was always mine as my choice was already made and not to be overturned by such creatures as these. That pleasure too I have learned from Xena.

"You have chosen. It is your destiny," he snarls, making the words sound like a threat. "So let it be."

"So let it be."

Unusually, it's not yet dawn when I wake. I rarely wake on my own before day is breaking. Even more unusual—today I am the first one awake. The air is cool, but I'm warm and toasty, sprawled as I am under the furs and atop Xena. My head is tucked under her chin, my arms (rather numb) are wrapped around her, hands tucked beneath her shoulders, and my pelvis rests between her legs, which are entangled with mine. I fell asleep on top of her after we made love, it seems, and neither of us moved all night. I lift my head and her eyes snap open as if she had never been asleep. They are so blue, so blue and so beautiful; it doesn't matter that there is not yet enough light to distinguish color. She smiles. "I know you," she says playfully. "Hey, you." Her hands slide over my back and then she wraps her arms around me. "I love you."

I snuggle into her arms, nuzzle my face into her neck. "I love you too," I say, her skin against my mouth muffling the words.

She's gone still and tense and I lift my head to see her face. "What?"

She looks puzzled but she also has that look she gets when she's figuring something out. "It's just . . . I just remembered something."

"What?"

"Saying that before . . ."

I smile cheekily. "Yeah, I think you said it a few times last night." I can feel my smile soften, my whole face. "And yesterday—and every day for the last few moons."

She gives me that smile now, that full-on beaming smile that shows her teeth and makes her look like the softest, sweetest woman in the world instead of the deadly warrior she is. Well, she may be deadly, but she is soft and sweet, too—for me, anyway, only for me. She squeezes me in a hug and lifts her head to kiss me. "And I'll keep telling you I love you every day that I draw breath for the rest of my life," she vows when our lips part, entirely serious.

See? With me, she is the sweetest woman in the world. I thank the gods I'm the one who gets this Xena.

"But that's not what I meant," she adds. "It was the other part, that I know you."

"Okaay . . ." I'm just letting her know I'm listening as I wait for more.

"I'd forgotten all about that until just now." I feel the muscles in her stomach tighten and I know she wants to sit up, so I roll onto my side and prop myself up on my elbow. She rises, oblivious to the chill in the air, turns to me, and folds her legs in front of her. "It was a long time ago. Before we met. I was hurt—it was . . ."

I see the pain of the memory in the lines of her face and I put my hand on her leg. She takes it in both her own. "Caesar had broken my legs," she says, matter-of-factly, and I know what it costs her to keep her voice so even when she says his name. "M'Lila was taking me to Nicklio, and I was pretty out of it. Fever, I guess. But there was this woman. I don't know where she came from or where she went, but I saw her clear as day, and I knew her, so that's what I said when I saw her. 'I know you.'"

I'm shaking my head. "No, no, you said that to me. I remember that. You were hurt. God, it was bad, and . . ." I stop, realizing I can't remember when this happened. "But when was that?"

She's looking at me strangely. "It wasn't you, Gabrielle. We hadn't even met yet. You would have been hardly more than a child."

I sit up. "Xena, I remember it. I just . . . can't . . . quite . . ." When the hades HAD that happened? Xena seriously wounded? That never happens! The only time I had been really scared for her, other than the time I dragged her up that damn mountain to Nicklio, was that time with the poison dart . . .

"Gabrielle, I think I know when it happened. It's my memory after all! I was lying on this travois M'Lila had rigged and she was taking me up Mount Nestus, though I didn't know it then. I woke up and the woman was there, right on top of me, like you were when I woke up just now."

I'm nodding. "I held your hand and you tried to say something, so I leaned closer, but my hair got in your face . . ."

Her eyes are wide and her lips are parted in surprise. I've rarely seen her look so shocked. "How could you know that?" she whispers.

"Because I was there!" I say, annoyed now, with her for insisting it was someone else, with myself for not remembering when this happened. "I got my hair out of your face, and you said, 'I know you.' I just remembered when you brought it up. Then you said, 'Who are you?' It must have been when I took you to Nicklio."

Xena looks seriously baffled now. "I did say that, but Gabrielle . . ."

"And I said . . . I said, 'I'm yours' . . . Xena . . . Xena, I remember it, but that . . . that never happened!"

"No, it didn't," she says, "or rather it did, but it happened to me while you were still telling stories to your dolls in Potidaea."

I cross my arms, a bit defiantly. "All right then. Then who was this woman who told you she was yours, hm? How did I know what she told you?"

"I—I don't know."

"You said you knew her."

There's a pause. Then: "I did."

"Well?" I demand.

She's staring at me like she's memorizing my face. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft, and it takes me off guard. "But it couldn't have been you, Gabrielle."

I throw my hands up, more out of frustration that I can't place that particular moment than annoyance with her.

"Gabrielle, think about it. It couldn't have happened while you were taking me to Nicklio because I never regained consciousness the whole way. I mean, I could have forgotten, messed up as I was, but that's what you said, right? You told me you were so scared and kept hoping I'd wake up, so things wouldn't seem so bad, so you could believe I was getting better, so I could tell you what to do for me, but I never woke up once. It couldn't have been any other time since we've known each other either. I haven't been out of it like that any other time. That time with the dart was bad, but I never lost touch with reality, so why would I have been asking you who you were?"

"Well . . . well, okay, but look, if you knew this woman, why would you have been asking her that anyway?"

"I didn't know her. I mean, yeah, I knew her, but I didn't know her."

"Xena, you're not making any sense."

She sighs. She studies her hands for a moment, lost in thought, and then she looks up at me and takes my hands. "Gabrielle, I knew her like I knew you when I saw you in the woods outside Potidaea that day. I knew her like . . ." She searches for words.

"Like the other half of your heart," I say, because I too am remembering that day when I first laid eyes on her and knew I belonged with her. I gaze into her blue eyes—and it is light enough now that I can see they're blue.

She's gazing back at me and I've mostly forgotten the conversation we were having before. It's one of those moments when the world drops away around us and the only thing that exists is she and I.

"Maybe it was you," she says. One of her hands tucks my hair behind my ear and then cups my cheek. She leans in. "Must have been." I lean in, drawn to her as naturally as breathing. "You're the only other half of my heart," she says with her mouth against mine.

Sweetest woman in the world.

No one would ever believe it, I think vaguely, as I pull her into my arms and down onto the blankets. But, then, I like having it for our little secret.